Sunday, July 03, 2005

Iraqis are not allowed to go to the U.K

I am sorry for my absence, I went to Jordan 3 weeks ago with my grand-father and grand-mother, we wanted to go to the U.K and because we can't get visa from Baghdad we had to go to Jordan and we had to go to the British Embassy their for 3 days at 4 am, and we couldn't get in, on the third day my father gave us a phone number which he got from the British Embassy's website and my grand-father call them and told them that he is 77 and he can't stand in the street for long time, then they allowed us to get in.But our effort has gone for no thing because they didn't give us visa, and their reasons were very silly, for us they told us'' You are carrying a lot of money'', for others they told them'' You need more money to go to the U.K'', they should say'' Iraqis are not allowed to go to the U.K''.They didn't treat us well, and I didn't like them at all, you will say the same if you treated like that.Only Iraqis were treated bad, if any Jordanian come to the British Embassy, they let him in by the moment and give him visa. For that my grand-father decided to end his investment in the U.K which he had since 1979 and transfer it to another country.With all that I had fun in Jordan, and the place I had most fun in it was the Zoo, it wasn't a great Zoo but it was the first Zoo I ever see, I saw cats, birds, tigers, lions, beers and monkeys.

Raghda,i'm sorry to hear that you couldn't get a visa to the UK,but believe this applys to almost all Iraqis trying to get a visa anywhere.Be happy,brave and cheer up , we have only few years left until we get our true Iraqi prestige back.It's someone else's fault that we have to pay for but still you deserve to be give a visa to the Heaven not only to UK.

Dear Raghda,I am sorry that you were not well treated at the British Embassy and that they would not give you a visa. I am also glad that you got to go to the zoo. I have been to several different zoos over the years and I always enjoyed the experience. Someday, I hope that Baghdad will have a very nice zoo that all the children can enjoy. :)

I live in South Devon in the UK and am very sad that you could not visit :( So sorry on behalf of English people that you were badly treated, Im very shocked. Hopefully one day you can visit our country, if you do, be sure to visit Cornwall and Devon, in my opinion they are the most beautiful parts of the English countryside. I hoped you had a great time in Jordan anyway, and the zoo was fun!

Would you mind if I gave you a little tip on your otherwise perfect spelling? 'Cute' is spelt with an 'e' at the end, not 'cut' which means something different. Just thought I should correct you on that, hope you do not get upset!

Recently a mainland Chinese friend of mine tried to obtain a Visitor's Visa for her 15 year old son, who she has not seen for almost 5 years, so he could come to Canada and visit for a month this summer. He was turned down because the immigration officier thought, "he would likely not return to China after his visit". This is absolutely false as he has a great life in China and is doing very well in school there.

IRAQ’S former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has warned that his country is facing civil war and has predicted dire consequences for Europe and America as well as the Middle East if the crisis is not resolved. “The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq,” said Allawi, a long-time ally of Washington.

In an interview with The Sunday Times last week as he visited Amman, the Jordanian capital, he said: “The policy should be of building national unity in Iraq. Without this we will most certainly slip into a civil war. We are practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak.”

Allawi, a secular Shi’ite, said that Iraq had collapsed as a state and needed to be rebuilt. The only way forward, he said, was through “national unity, the building of institutions, the economy and a firm but peaceful foreign relation policy”. Unless these criteria were satisfied, “the country will deteriorate”.

Allawi’s concern comes amid signs of growing violence between Shi’ites, who make up 60% of Iraq’s estimated 26m people, and the Sunni minority who dominated the upper reaches of the civilian bureaucracy and officer corps under Saddam Hussein.

The Shi’ites, who endured decades of oppression, are threatening to purge members of Saddam’s former Ba’ath party from the army and the intelligence services, a move that would provoke fierce retaliation from the Sunnis.

Since the execution-style killings of 34 men whose bound and blindfolded bodies were found in three predominantly Shi’ite areas of Baghdad in May, other tit-for-tat murders have followed, with clerics among the targets.

Tension has increased in the past two weeks following the return of Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Zarqawi left the country in May to seek medical treatment for a chest wound suffered in an American airstrike, but has now recovered sufficiently to resume his activities.

Earlier this month he claimed that his supporters had killed Sheikh Kamaleddin al-Ghuraifi, a senior aide to Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Zarqawi has now released an audiotape in which he announces the formation of a new militant unit, the Omar Corps. Its avowed aim is to “eradicate” the Badr brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country’s largest Shi’ite political party, which has targeted Sunnis.

Allawi, who became head of the interim government council created after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, said it was imperative that the security services and military be rebuilt. He has been a staunch critic of the policy followed by Paul Bremer, the American former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, of removing former Ba’athists from positions of power and disbanding Saddam’s army without putting anything else in place.

Allawi said that he had discussed the urgency of rebuilding Iraq’s military with President George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, last year. “Bush earmarked $5.7 billion (£3.2 billion) . . . but I did not receive the money,” Allawi said.

His experience as prime minister had taught him that “force alone will not solve the problems in Iraq”. It needed to be combined with dialogue and money to ensure stability.

However, Allawi insisted the Americans’ presence in Iraq was still required and rejected suggestions that a schedule should be drawn up for their withdrawal. “I cannot see withdrawal based on timing, but based on conditions,” he said. These would be satisfied only once Iraq “develops the capability to deal with threats”.

During his term Allawi lost the support of Iraq’s secular middle class through failing to fulfil his promise of restoring security and because of alleged corruption.

However, he is preparing for a comeback in elections scheduled for December. His supporters believe he will be helped in part by the increasing impact of Iraqi gunmen and suicide bombers since Ibrahim Jaafari became prime minister in April.

More than 1,400 people have since been killed, and many Iraqis who regarded Allawi as a ruthless leader now speak wistfully of the relative calm enjoyed under his rule.

Allawi is in intense negotiations to create a new multi-ethnic secular coalition before the general election.

“If we don’t build a state we will lose,” Allawi warned. “Not just as Iraq, but the region as a whole and Europe should say goodbye to stability and so should the United States. Iraq will become a breeding ground for terrorists.

“My philosophy in fighting is to isolate the hardcore Islamists. If you isolate them, it will become very easy to smash them or bring them to justice.”

US Marines and Iraqi soldiers have seized 22 suspected militants in Operation Scimitar, a fourth counter-insurgency sweep of the Euphrates valley in less than a month, the American military said yesterday.

I just redid http://www.dickeatsbush.com/youlied.htm a video I made, it's a direct link. No information exchange. I had noticed a link that mentioned my site, so I thought I would share a recent rework.

To AnonymousYour postings here are inappropriate. This is a little kids website who loves cats. She needs encouragement not political diatribe.

Doh!, sorry =\ I meant no ill posting that. I would like to say though, some of us americans are doing all we can.. He is NOT my president, if I had the opportunity I would spit on him to say the least. Please accept my most humble apology Baghdad Girl, I meant not the slightest disrespect.

HOWEVER, the person wanting the visa must answer all the questions on the application form (omitting even one will make the application fail); and one must be able to show how one is going to live while in the UK.

For instance, it is better if you have been invited to stay with relatives already in the UK (ie you can show the embassy officials a letter of invitation from your relatives) because the cost of living here is so high and yet there is a limit to how much money anyone can bring into the UK. That might explain how your grandparents were told two apparently conflicting things. My guess is that the embassy officials could not see how your grandparents would be able to afford to live in the UK during their visit, with the amount of money that is allowed to be brought in. Or perhaps one or other of your grandparents has an on-going medical condition that might cause worry when they are in the UK. My guess is that your grandparents were too vague about something (or everything): eg where they would stay, for how long, what they would do, and when they were planning to return to Iraq.

I hope this helps. Your grandparents can try again - and the Embassy will given them a written reason why this application for a visa was turned down this time.

HOWEVER, the person wanting the visa must answer all the questions on the application form (omitting even one will make the application fail); and one must be able to show how one is going to live while in the UK.

For instance, it is better if you have been invited to stay with relatives already in the UK (ie you can show the embassy officials a letter of invitation from your relatives) because the cost of living here is so high and yet there is a limit to how much money anyone can bring into the UK. That might explain how your grandparents were told two apparently conflicting things. My guess is that the embassy officials could not see how your grandparents would be able to afford to live in the UK during their visit, with the amount of money that is allowed to be brought in. Or perhaps one or other of your grandparents has an on-going medical condition that might cause worry when they are in the UK. My guess is that your grandparents were too vague about something (or everything): eg where they would stay, for how long, what they would do, and when they were planning to return to Iraq.

I hope this helps. Your grandparents can try again - and the Embassy will given them a written reason why this application for a visa was turned down this time.

HOWEVER, the person wanting the visa must answer all the questions on the application form (omitting even one will make the application fail); and one must be able to show how one is going to live while in the UK.

For instance, it is better if you have been invited to stay with relatives already in the UK (ie you can show the embassy officials a letter of invitation from your relatives) because the cost of living here is so high and yet there is a limit to how much money anyone can bring into the UK. That might explain how your grandparents were told two apparently conflicting things. My guess is that the embassy officials could not see how your grandparents would be able to afford to live in the UK during their visit, with the amount of money that is allowed to be brought in. Or perhaps one or other of your grandparents has an on-going medical condition that might cause worry when they are in the UK. My guess is that your grandparents were too vague about something (or everything): eg where they would stay, for how long, what they would do, and when they were planning to return to Iraq.

I hope this helps. Your grandparents can try again - and the Embassy will given them a written reason why this application for a visa was turned down this time.

Dear Raghda,i`m truly sorry for what u had to face, and i`m worried if some of these problems may leave a permenant scar on your nice pure spirit. Any decent person would feel confused and develop some negative feelings for such wrong judgements either made officially or not. some issues like this VISA issue have some political boundaries attached to it (by the way jordanians has to have an approval from the agency of intelligence to have VISA ... jordan intelligence is a well structured organized agency, this is a very common requirement for VISAs for arabs every where and most embassies investigate automatically. but embassies does`nt have any reliable source for such information about iraqies) , i`m from yemen living in jordan and we have about a million iraqies here in jordan with huge (i mean big big money) ammounts of cash some of em warent earned legally, and jordan is welcoming any ammount of dollars in jordan to support its economy(british embassy knows this).. also u have ur government to blame cause since the new regiem there wasnt any moves to backup iraqies rights outside iraq and those attending to travel. Dont worry about it i always respected iraqies and i think most of the world did.... i mean indivisuals who most of them are highly educated and well behaved, its just a matter of a year or two then i guarentee u will be the first arabs aproved for VISAs even to the moon ....glad u had fun in here although jordan isnt always an enjoyable place but they payed extra effort to make it right during summer...

Raghda, I am very interested to know: Are the people working in the embassy British people? Or are they Jordanian people?

Because if they are British people, usually there is one process and if you follow it exactly, you should get the right result. And you can usually complain about it, if you followed the process and there wasn't success.

But if they are Jordanian people, there might be any number of processes and maybe you need to give a bribe to some people, or something like that? It's more difficult to follow the right process if everybody tell you a different story. I hope you won't give up. You would like the UK, because there are many cats, and they are mostly very spoiled. And the British Children's Aid society (to help abused children) began as a department of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (to help abused animals). It's true.

I should say that it's not about Jordanian people, but there are many many countries where the rules are not clear and people take advantage sometimes. But usually the UK is not one of those countries.

Raghda, Do not be surprised by any negative or hateful treatment from certain sectors of the U.K. or U.S. These people want to be loved, but yet they justify dropping over 75,000 bombs on your country unilaterally because they could. Despite what you read, always remember that okay. They killed a hundred thousand of your country men and women, and for that they do not deserve a visit from you. You should go somewhere else. They really did you a favor my child. Remember always treat everyone with love, as you would your mother and father, no matter their race, creed, or color. May good fortune and blessing come your way.

Hey my name is Mary. Im thirteen and i live in Caliafornia. I dont know that much about you and your family but it would be nice to talk to you sometime. I'v been through hard times to but no as many as you here my E-MAIL is Mary_Chapman2012@msn.com i would really like to talk with you and here some of yor stories!! Bye Raghda!!!! Love Always, Mary

What you're going through now is the cost of freedom. The people who founded America 200 years ago suffered like you are today and because of it we have the great country we do. The people of Japan also went through something similar and look at Japan today. India and China were occupied and look at them today. Iraq now has the opportunity for a bright future and one day you'll be glad that you were part of history. Stay strong girl!